Mumbra building collapse: Six victims were natives of Nepal

Four months after the horrific Mumbra building collapse that claimed 74 lives, it has come to light that six among the dead were citizens of Nepal. The revelation came after the Collector’s office was collecting details of the deceased so that the Rs 2 lakh compensation amount declared by the chief minister could be disbursed to the next of kin.

72 people died and scores were injured in the Mumbra building collapse on April 4, one of the worst disasters the city has witnessed; a copy of the letter from the Collector’s office. File pic

Following the finding, the Collector has requested the state’s chief secretary to draft a letter to the Embassy of Nepal. “When we were collecting details of the dead in April, we got to know that five were natives of Nepal. In August, however, we received a letter from the district collector’s office at Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, notifying us that the person we had requested information of was not from their district, but was from Nepal. This took the total to six,” said an official from the Thane collector’s office, on condition of anonymity.

Out of the 74 people who died in the horrifying building collapse on April 4, bodies of six people have not been identified yet. Of the 68 persons who were identified, six were inhabitants of Nepal, three from Bihar, two from Karnataka, one from Tamil Nadu, 38 from Uttar Pradesh, 11 from West Bengal and seven were from Jharkhand. From these, the family members of 17 deceased persons have received compensation while the remaining are still pending, as authorities are waiting for the confirmation from the respective district collector’s office.

Man-made tragedy On April 4, the illegal building on Shil Road in Mumbra came crashing down, killing 74 people and injuring 62. The Thane Crime Branch arrested 22 persons, including eight government servants who allegedly accepted bribes for turning a blind eye to the structure. The building was erected in around two months.